A blitz of caveats put on Crafar North Island dairy farm titles by the company acting as the buying agent for a Chinese group is being removed by the Crafar receiver, The Dominion Post reported. A search of property titles for many of the farms involved in the Crafar receivership shows caveats registered by UBNZ Funds Management, the New Zealand company partly owned by Chinese company Natural Dairy (NZ) Holdings, which is in negotiations to buy more than 20 farms in the receivership.

The Australian arm of recruitment advertising firm TMP Worldwide was placed into voluntary administration on Wednesday after falling victim to the global financial crisis, industry publication Recruiter reported. According to a report in The Australian newspaper, around 200 jobs are at risk at six locations around the country.

A senior Chinese trade official warned that any further appreciation of the Chinese currency risked driving exporters out of business, underscoring the domestic political pressures on Beijing amid growing international calls for China to let the yuan rise, The Wall Street Journal reported. Vice Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, in an exclusive interview Thursday ahead of a visit to the U.S., said that the profit margin on many Chinese export goods was less than 2%.

UAE banks are likely to keep a tight lid on lending in coming years, even if the sector manages to avoid an immediate hit from the Dubai World debt restructuring, analysts say. The state-owned conglomerate, which is grappling with $26 billion in debt, is in the final stages of preparing a debt restructuring plan to put to its 97 creditors. Analysts have voiced concerns that domestic lending would dry up if banks are forced to take big losses on Dubai World-related debt.

STX Group, one of the nation's leading shipbuilders, has joined the competition to take over Daehan Shipbuilding, The Korea Times reported. The company said Wednesday it had submitted a bid to buy the cash-strapped firm the previous day, the closing day for the tender. Daehan Shipbuilding, now under a debt rescheduling program, has a 140,000 square-meter dock in Haenam, South Jeolla Province.

Taranaki-based Organic Dairy Limited, owned by New Zealand Organic Dairy Farmers Co-operative, has gone into receivership owing an estimated $15 million and costing about 30 jobs, The New Zealand Herald reported. Receivers were appointed on Friday and the Okato factory stopped operating on Saturday, the Taranaki Daily News reported. The directors asked their major creditor, the Bank of New Zealand, to appoint receivers.

A string of villages on the outskirts of Beijing has become the unlikely focus of a national discussion about China's stubbornly tough job market for young people, as officials meet in the capital for the annual session of China's legislature, The Wall Street Journal reported. Government statistics show 87% of college graduates found work last year. But many graduates doubt those figures, and they say that jobs that are available often pay a barely livable wage.

Chinese real estate prices accelerated last month, rising by their fastest pace in two years despite government efforts to cool the market amid fears of a looming property bubble, the Financial Times reported. Prices of commercial and residential property in China’s 70 largest cities rose by 10.7 per cent in February from the same period a year earlier, a marked increase from the 9.5 per cent year-on-year gain in January, according to China’s statistics bureau.

Signs mounted Monday of Chinese authorities' concern about the risk from debt incurred by local governments in projects to help China's economy recover—an issue that is a hot topic at the National People's Congress, now meeting in Beijing, The Wall Street Journal reported. China's leaders have increased scrutiny of this debt over the past months, fearing that local governments won't be able to pay back all their loans. The issue was also highlighted in the Ministry of Finance's budget report released at the start of the annual legislative session on Friday.

The window has reopened for Canberra to acquire the water rights to the nation's biggest irrigator, southwest Queensland's Cubbie cotton station, if voluntary administrators fail to sell the struggling operation. As floodwaters poured into massive dams that can hold enough water to fill Sydney Harbour, promising two full crops of cotton worth up to $280 million, sources told The Australian the administrators were negotiating with the federal government.